Hi, I'm Paul Feig, and I Wear a Suit Every Day for a Reason

The man behind Bridesmaids, Freaks and Geeks, and now the new Ghostbusters film on the power of a suit.

I blame TV. I would see Darrin Stephens mixing a pitcher of martinis when he got home from work or Maude's husband, Walter, pouring himself a Scotch and all I could think was, I want to live like that. I liked a world filled with cocktail parties and nightclub floor shows and giant table lighters. And I knew the uniform for any grown man living in that world was a suit and tie.

And so, at the age of 11, I convinced my mother to buy me a Pierre Cardin three-piece suit.

"He's going to grow out of it in a month!" my father ranted as I stood there fully haberdashed in a shirt, tie, and pocket square, looking like the world's classiest ventriloquist dummy. And he was right. I did grow out of it in about a month. But, oh, what a month it was! I wore that suit everywhere — to school, to the grocery store, to restaurants. I got lots of stares and many derisive laughs from both peers and adults alike. But I didn't care. Pearls before swine, I thought to myself. I felt great because I felt like a grown-up.

But then the next two decades conspired against my Beau Brummell–like ways.

When I went to high school, in the late 1970s, disco was in full swing and anyone who was into it dressed the part. I know I did. Angels Flight flare pants in tans and creams, faux-silk shirts in bright and wild patterns — I was tall and skinny, and because of the stretchy polyester, everything was hyper-fitted like poor man's bespoke.

In the mid-1980s, when I started doing stand-up comedy, I became enamored with freer-flowing Williwear suits, which I would don onstage with the sleeves rolled up. Unfortunately, as the decade went on, stand-up comedy became more casual, and so I abandoned those suits for vintage bowling shirts and jeans, which I felt lent me a more accessible persona. My stand-up career took off, but I missed my suits.

It was only after I created the show Freaks and Geeks, in the late 1990s, that I decided to go back to my sartorial roots. The epiphany happened in a meeting with a studio one day. I was in my jeans and oxford shirt (worn open over a T-shirt like a makeshift blazer), and the executives I was meeting with were all in suits and ties. (Which is why they were always derisively known as "the suits.") And I suddenly hated being so identifiable as "the artist." As they pilloried me with notes on my new script, I immediately decided that from that point on, I would dress like the enemy. Their suits gave them power, and I wanted to even the playing field.

And so I went out and bought a bunch of new suits. The first batch were functional, purchased from an anonymous men's store in the mall where the salesmen were more interested in making the sale than in fitting you properly. As years went on, I fell in love with Ralph Lauren — first the more-generous-fitting Polo line before discovering the Italian-fitting Black Label and finally slipping into the luxurious Purple Label line. This eventually became a gateway drug to the wide lapels of Tom Ford and the wallet-emptying, but soul-satisfying, skin-like fits of bespoke three-piece suits from Anderson & Sheppard and Thom Sweeney. The more suits I owned, the more I realized the best besuited look a man can achieve comes from a harmony of three details: fabric, construction, and fit. If the suit fits you like a glove and it's well made, you simply feel better about everything in life when you're wearing it.

The irony is that shortly after I purchased that first batch of mall suits, all of the Hollywood power brokers decided they didn't like being identified as "the suits," and so they switched to jeans and T-shirts, trying to look more like the artists. But my mind was made up. I was sticking with it. I felt better in a suit and tie. It was my professional uniform. It was my way of showing respect for the power I was being given as a director, a way of letting the cast and crew know there's an adult in charge. I had always loved pictures of old Hollywood, in which not only Alfred Hitchcock and Howard Hawks would be in a suit and tie on set but their crew members would also be nicely dressed as they hung lights and moved equipment around. It was how I always hoped the people who made the movies I loved looked, and so I wanted to bring that little bit of formality back to the town.

In the 12 years I've been doing it, outside of one incident in which a producer tried to convince me not to dress up because he said I was putting myself above the actors — seriously — I've been thanked by both cast members and crew people for showing them a little respect by dressing like a leader and like the adult I'd always wanted to be. And, selfishly, yes, I've also just really enjoyed wearing my suits — just like I did before I grew out of that Pierre Cardin three-piece.

Paul Feig is the creator of Freaks and Geeks and the director of Bridesmaids. He owns well over 50 suits. if only they were all in style.

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